Is this the only investment you will ever need?

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a long-term investment aiming to deliver capital growth through a diversified portfolio. OK, maybe not what Ewan McGregor was thinking about at the time, so where do we go to choose what to invest in?

First time investor

If you’re new to investing, the volume of information can seem overwhelming. Getting up to speed with how things work can be a challenge. It can take time to put together a portfolio that offers you diversification across different types of investments, while settling on a level of risk and reward that you’re comfortable with. Ready-made Investments offer a quick, efficient, and cost-effective way to build a diversified portfolio with a clear risk level.

The importance of diversification

Investing in just one type of investment is risky. Think about the risks of investing in the shares of American companies, for example. If the US stock market performs well, you’re likely to see good returns, but if it performs badly, your whole investment is at risk.

One way to protect yourself from this risk is to also invest in other markets that may perform well when others don’t and vice versa. Investing in a range of different types of investments can help you avoid too much exposure in any one area. It’s what’s known as diversification. Ready-made Investments aim to give you a diversified portfolio that spreads your investments across different types of assets and different geographies.

The Barclays approach

Barclays believes a thoughtfully designed, diversified portfolio is usually the best way to achieve long-term goals. This approach will invest right across the world, from the prominent markets of Europe and America, to the exciting regions of China and India. These funds take the work out of investing because they’re looked after by Barclays’ investment experts who do all of the hard stuff so you don't have to. They’ll make changes to where your money’s invested depending on what’s going on in the stock markets, and we’ll keep you regularly updated with how your investment's performing.

5x Ready-made Investments

We like to keep investing simple, so we have created five ready-made portfolio funds. Each one will have a different proportion of investments in different markets around the world, which will ultimately affect the amount of risk you are taking and how much the value of your investment is likely to go up and down. Because each one acts in a slightly different way, you need to choose which one matches your individual needs and attitude to risk.

• Defensive Fund: it’s like riding a bike with the stabilisers on
• Cautious Fund: it’s like taking the stabilisers off your bike – you might wobble slightly, but it’s not too dangerous
• Balanced Fund: it’s like riding a bike in the road, but still in the cycle lane
• Growth Fund: it’s like riding a bike off-road – but making sure you’re wearing a helmet and knee pads
• Adventurous Fund: riding down a mountain – you could suffer serious harm but the exhilaration could be worth it.

So, to get started all you need to do is choose which fund to go for. Whether you’re more comfortable taking a lower risk approach or are happy to take a bit more risk in the hope of potentially higher returns, hopefully there'll be a fund to match your needs.

Find out more about the range of Barclays Ready-made Investments (RMI) available. The RMI are just one example of a range of diversified funds which allow you to select the level of risk you are most comfortable with. These multi-asset funds invest in passive funds across a range of asset classes and regions, offering a globally diversified solution for investors. Ready-made Investments are not the only funds that we offer and they won’t be appropriate for everyone.

Correct at the time of publishing.

Past performance of the fund and its manager are not a reliable indicator of their future performance.

We don’t offer personal investment advice so if you’re unsure you should seek that independently.

Funds are designed for the long term so you should only consider them if you can stay invested for at least five years.

These are our current opinions but the future, as ever, is uncertain and outcomes may differ.

Read the Assessment of Value report [PDF, 3.2MB] for funds run by Barclays.